FALL RIVER — The line between a dream and a nightmare can be razor thin sometimes, Peter Cabral admitted.

Still, his plans to build a restaurant and banquet hall overlooking Mount Hope Bay remain on the dream side — despite almost a year of setbacks to get the former Regatta site into shape.

"We hope, in the next two weeks, to get this buttoned up," he said Sunday at the site. "Once we close this up, we can really move. We can really start to get some work done. I'm looking at an opening date of Memorial Day right now."

On a sunny winter day the draw of the site is obvious. Cabral and his architects, William Starck Architect Inc., of 126 Cove St., redesigned the western and southern walls, opening them up and adding three dozen windows.

The water sparkled. The Battleship Massachusetts loomed large, as did the Braga Bridge. Even without electric lighting, the room was bright enough for sunglasses.

It would be hard to find a better view anywhere nearby, Newport included.

The plans call for a waterfront bar and a dining room that will seat 275. A deck overlooking the water will be open in good weather. A banquet room will seat an additional 200. The building, once 12,000 square feet, was expanded by 2,000 square feet to provide amenities for the boaters who rent the 44 slips at the site. There will also be a 400 foot dock for transient boaters.

"With the old building, there was about 4 feet of windows on the back and no view," Cabral said, looking out at the water and shaking his head. "We are going to make the most of this view."

Cabral, who was part of the team that started the Taphouse on South Main Street, took over the site a year ago and began demolition.

Permitting took longer than expected and environmental inspectors had to be assured, every step of the way, that the work and the restaurant would not harm Mount Hope Bay, Cabral said.

In April, someone crawled under the building and started a fire that damaged some of the supports under the section of the building that once held the kitchen.

"The kitchen still had concrete tile on the floor," Cabral said. "We were lucky. The fire never penetrated."

The plans were to close up the building before winter set in, but his contractor, B-Tech Construction Co., questioned the strength of the trusses proposed for the addition.

New trusses are being prepared now by Reliable Truss of New Bedford, and they will satisfy the builders, the architects and the engineers, Cabral said.

Eventually, Cabral said, none of that will be important. What will be important will be the friends the restaurant will make and the food it will serve.

Page 2 of 2 - "We will make this a comfortable place," Cabral said. "It will be nice, but it won't be too fancy.

"This is a blue-collar town. I'm going to keep the prices so my neighbors can come here. In the summer, I expect we will be busy, but in the winter, my neighbors will help me survive."

Since he took over the site, the entire neighborhood has changed. Davol Street, right outside his front door, is closed to traffic. The Route 79 ramps are being demolished. Cabral said he has gotten lost coming to his own restaurant because of changes in the traffic pattern.

"I'm told we will have access by the time we open, but I can't get a real answer," Cabral said. "I spoke with state Rep. Carole Fiola. She said she will get an answer for me. But I think, with the ramps coming down and the flow of traffic coming to the waterfront, this will all be good for the city.

"You look, with Jerry Remy's, the Red Cedar, us, the Tipsy and the Narrows and Columbia Street, there will be a lot down here. The Fall River waterfront is becoming a place to go, like Federal Hill is in Providence.

"People will be able to stay in the city and have a good night out. That will have to be good for Fall River."